


Arthur Pendragon and the Cup of Life

by rotrude



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Historical, Gen, Inspired by Indiana Jones, M/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-23
Updated: 2016-10-23
Packaged: 2018-08-24 04:31:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8357290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rotrude/pseuds/rotrude
Summary: Archaeologist Arthur Pendragon's hobby horse has always been finding the Cup of Life. Throughout endless missions across the world, that has always been his goal. Now he may start his search in earnest. Pity he's saddled with a new assistant, Merlin Emrys.





	

Cambodia, 1932

 

Sunlight slanted against the stone, gilded it in tones of orange and honey, ginger and saffron. Musk stained the walls and reflected itself in the moat waters as they lapped green and emerald where they touched the masonry's foundations. Great towers reached for the white, cloudless sky while limbs of mist locked underfoot. They caressed the entryway and paths, the base of the palm trees and the girth of the columns that held up the roof.

From the haze the outline of a temple took form, a sprawling complex of sanctuaries, parks, dykes, nested rectangular walls and moats representing a geography of unearthly origins.

“Angkor Wat,” Arthur said under his breath. “The glory of the Khmer, the city of the gods.”

Arthur took a step forward and unleashed his whip. He took a deep breath and spared a thought for the millennial beauty that surrounded him, for the people who'd trodden this ground before, for the powers these walls had been erected to honour. He inhaled the scent on the air, thick with the redolence of flowers, the smell of sap. He then advanced. When he came upon the entrance, a cloud obscured it. Arthur stopped, then shifted his weight onwards. He'd stepped within the precinct of the oldest shrine.

Moisture seeping from the spaces between stones, the temple corridors were narrow, damp. Cracks ran along arches and split architraves while small fissures ran along the circumference of pillars.

Arthur moved slowly, wary of traps, both the natural ones and those made by man. As he penetrated deeper into the temple, sunlight and shadows criss-crossed each other, wind whistled in the fissures in the walls and breaths of vapour came from the gaps underfoot.

He passed a series of chambers. Some of them had lost their roofs, roots displacing masonry, vines twining together in knots. Some were still intact, with their walls up and canopies of stone for ceilings. Echoes sounding off bare wall, the alcoves were empty. The statuary was broken, the jaws of lions gone, the wings of birds smashed. The deeper Arthur went, the more the tunnels tightened. The air choked with the musty smell of earth, the stench of decay. It was heavy with dust motes, nearly unbreathable.

He'd just made it past a large cubicle whose wall was covered in bas reliefs still shining with colour, when he came upon a wall of crumbled debris blocking the route. With his foot he kicked at the mound and enough of it came down that he could squeeze ahead if he sucked in his stomach and put his back to the wall.

After some twenty or thirty yards, the passageway got larger again, with wall carvings etching intricacies on stone. He crossed a courtyard opening in the shadow of trees and came upon the inner sanctum. It was a wide rectangular chamber. Bushes carpeted it and undergrowth filled it.

Hoping there were no snakes about, Arthur stepped on the tangle of vegetation and came up the furthest wall.

A bas relief spread along one section of it and an inscription sprawled underneath it. Dirt caked it and some segments of it were worn smooth by time. But most symbols Arthur could still recognize. The script was ancient, atypical in some of its features, characterised by markers of different styles, but Arthur could tell it was Khmer. The bas reliefs depicted a battle, rows of men in arms, and a king-like figure standing on a large, broadly muscled elephant held his long sword in his hand.

The words underneath the relief crowded one upon the other. “Fierce battles took place with the those of the Ayutthaya Kingdom,” Arthur shakily translated. “And great loss of life ensued. But King Barom Reachea took his men ito battle and protected them against the invader. He died sword still in hand. Though he fell, his weapon lies close.”

The inscription having faded, the next few words were illegible, but another cluster of symbols cramped together a little further over. Dissecting them for meaning, his eyes skipped over the words, tripping over the ends of them to get to the next ones. 

Excitement knotted in his gut. He couldn't believe it. The Portuguese friar had been right! The king's sword must have been taken back to the capital before it was looted. It must have been hidden. With a quick swipe of his hand, Arthur brushed dust away from the wall and continued reading, “For Reachea's heir will claim the sword, which stone guards.”

“It's here,” he said, laughing out loud. “The sword is here!”

Arthur was about to start chiselling at the wall to loosen the stone, when the breaking of a twig made him turn round.

A man faced him. He wore a black leather jacket over which crossed strings of ammo were strapped. He had a patch on his eye and a pale old scar descended from his left eye and cut across the bone, skirting the side of his upper lip. He had his gun aimed at Arthur. “Stop right where you are, Pendragon, or I'll put a bullet right into you.”

“Ah, Cenred Le Roi.” Arthur studied the man in front of him. A gleeful darkness shone in his eyes. It rimmed his pupils and it sucked the light out of his irises. It erased all gentlenness from his face and changed it into a mask of coldness. Arthur couldn't imagine honour ever moving a man wearing such an expression. “Art smuggler extraordinaire. I knew you'd come.”

“Cut the pleasantries, Pendragon.” Le Roi waved his gun about. “Or I'll shoot.”

“I don't see how my talking back is going to change things, Le Roi,” Arthur said even as he searched for a way out. With Le Roi barring egress, there was none. “We both know your modus operandi and that's not to leave any witnesses behind.”

“Well, you never know, Pendragon.” Le Roi clacked his tongue. “Now turn around and dig.”

“Dig?” Arthur raised his eyebrows.

“Don't play coy.” Le Roi took a step forward. “We both know what you're here for. The Sword of King Reachea.”

Arthur didn't acknowledge that. “Ah, you're after that fabled weapon then.”

“It's not a fable,” Le Roi said. “It's right here.” His eyes searched the enclave. “And you are going to find it for me.”

“The Sword of Rechea belongs in a museum.”

Le Roi scoffed. “How very naive of you, Pendragon.” He steadied the gun. “The sword belongs to whoever finds it.”

“No.” That wasn't the purpose of art or artefacts. “It's part of Cambodia's heritage. It's not yours to line your pockets with.”

Le Roi worked his jaw and tutted. “Wrong again. But then I don't think a boy scout like you would grasp that.”

“So what do you want?” Arthur was getting quite tired of Le Roi's babbling.

“I think I said enough.” Le Roi lifted the gun. “Get me the sword, or I'll pull the trigger.”

“You'll pull it all the same.” Arthur inclined his head at the wall behind him. “If you're so sure the sword's here then why don't you get it yourself?”

“Because I'm not stupid.” Le Roi touched his forehead with the fingers of his free hand. “I'm quite learned in fact and know my history. At the time of the Reachea's death, the Khmer were at war with the Ayutthaya people. Angkor was sacked in 1431, as they knew it would be.” Le Roi's eyes flashed. “The Khmer wouldn't have wanted their enemies to get the sword, would they? It was a symbol of the kingdom's pride, after all.” Le Roi shook his head. “No, if the sword's there, it's protected by booby traps.”

“And you want me to get past them?” Arthur wanted to strangle Le Roi, not help him achieve his goal, but he could do nothing other than buy time. A plan would come to him. Hopefully sooner rather than later.

“I don't think you've a choice.” Le Roi put pressure on the trigger. “Now off to work.”

Arthur turned around. With his hands he felt for the gaps in the stone. He ran them from top to bottom and from the base of the style upwards. When he felt air whisper between his fingers, he paused. With a powerful puff of breath that swelled his cheeks, he blew at the dust and the gaps between stone and mortar stood out. He slid his scalpel out of his belt and worked it between the slabs of rock. 

“I haven't got all day, Pendragon,” Cenred said. “Get going or I might shoot first and think later.”

“With me dead--” Arthur made sure his voice covered the scraping of his instrument against stone. “You'd have to risk finding the sword yourself.”

“I'm nearly tempted, Pendragon, believe me.” Gravel debris cracked under Le Roi's foot. “Don't--”

The left section of the wall crumbled down. Lances came out of it and fended the air. As he ducked, Arthur felt one brush right above his head. It took his hat but not his scalp. Behind him, Le Roi cursed, but Arthur didn't turn to check on him. He elbowed bricks out of the way and kicked down the remaining part of the wall. While he regretted destroying the rests of the bas relief, there was not other way if he was to remain alive. Light shone from the chamber adjoining the one he was in. It had no walls and encroached upon a stretch of jungle drenched in sunlight.

A path cleared, Arthur grabbed the sword from the rubble and leaped onwards.

Bullets hailed after him and Arthur ran like the wind.

 

*****

 

Oxford, United Kingdom, 1932

 

Arthur pointed at the blackboard with his wooden marker. The vertical lines he had traced were powdery and faint at the edges, but the body of the letters themselves fully stood out with their bars and lines, their assemblage of sharp dashes and fat twists. “The Ogham alphabet originally consisted of twenty distinct characters,” he said. “Grouped together in four series aicmí.”

A murmur rose among the students. The heads of four of them converged together and they goggled at the notes they had taken.

Arthur was not unused to this. Though his students were supposed to be bright enough to follow wherever he led, that was not always the case. Although they'd passed stringent selection procedures to be admitted within the halls of such hallowed a college as Brasenose, a lot of them were not quite the brightest tools in the box.

That was possible, he supposed, because most were let in on the base of the good old 'pal' system, which preferred the scions of old alumni, in their turn chums of the current fellows, to the truly gifted but lower class candidates who were regularly turned down. In some cases that made the university nothing more than a finishing school for Eton pupils. While he'd been at Eton himself and still remembered the look of his house's common room on cold winter mornings, he couldn't quite bring himself to accept this lowering of standards. If you had a privilege, then you worked hard to deserve it, to the exclusion of everything else.

Arthur scratched his head and sighed.

Tapping the blackboard, Arthur made himself power on, “You'll notice that all these letters have a common characteristic, a recurrent feature. Can you tell me what it is?.” He turned around in the hopes of seeing raised hands. He detected none. Shoulders sloping, marker up and pointing, he said, “They're all formed by right side-downward strokes." He pinched the bone at the top of his nose. "Can you at least tell me the names of these letters?”

One of the students, a girl with her hair gathered in a knot and black framed glasses inched her palm upwards.

“Yes, Miss Lake?”

“Beith, Luis, Fearn.” She bit her lip. “Saille and....” Her eyes widened and her hand covered her mouth. “Um. The last one is...” 

The door opened without a knock and all students looked towards it. Gaius stood on the threshold with his bow tie sitting askew and his gown listing off one shoulder. “Arthur,” he said, causing Arthur's students to fall abruptly silent and to display none of the fidgeting that generally characterised them. “I'd like to have a word with you, if you wouldn't mind.”

Arthur looked at the clock hanging above the blackboard and saw that it was nearly three o' clock. Given that his lecture would soon be over soon, he could probably cut his students some slack. Putting down his marker, Arthur turned to the blackboard. “I want you,” he said as he noted the bibliography down, “to look into chapter four, five and six of Sponge's Archaeological Index to Remains of Celtic, Romano-British and Anglo-Saxon Periods, 1848, and to go over The Ogham Tract from the Auraicept na N-Éces. Don't even bother turning up if you haven't read it.” He turned around. “You're dismissed.”

The students put their pens in their satchels, hoisted their books under their arms, and filed out of the lecture room in files of twos and threes, saying, “Good bye, Sir Gaius.”

When the lecture room was empty, Arthur said, “No chance of them being as nice to me, is there?”

Gaius fiddled with his bow tie. “They do show some healthy respect for old age and authority though.”

“There's that at least. If only they had any mind for archaeology.” Arthur tossed the chalk into its bucket. “So any news from the governing body?”

“Yes, well, yes, my boy,” Gaius said. “Yes.”

“I knew it. I knew they'd say 'no'." Arthur sighed and squeezed the bridge of his nose. “Gaius, you have to change their minds. The Cup of Life is not just a myth. It exists. It's...” He gestured wildly. “It's still out there. Too many sources mention it for it to be nothing but a wild ta--” 

Gaius put his palm up. “Arthur, Arthur, Arthur,” he said, “I didn't say they won't finance the project.”

“Then what are you saying?” Arthur cocked his head for a better study of Gaius' face. He didn't look sombre or morose. In fact the beginnings of a smile played around the corners of his mouth. “I don't get it.”

"Come into my office and I will explain.”

Arthur followed Gaius down corridors broken up by series of arches that gave onto a flat grassed courtyard and up a flight of stone stairs guarded by an angel bearing a marble vessel. Gaius' door was the fourth on the right. The office was exactly how Arthur remembered it. A pile of books with ancient bindings rested on one side of a big oaken desk. Folders sat in a stack at the opposite end of it. A scattering of loose notes and envelopes lay across its surface, an ornate dagger with a ruby at the stem weighing them in place.

Gaius lowered himself into the chair behind the desk. “Arthur, perhaps I made a mistake barging in on your lecture. You must have assumed...”

“That we weren't approved for backing?” Arthur said, pulling a chair back without sitting on it. He rested his hand on its rest instead. “Did we get it then?”

Gaius locked his hands on his stomach. “We did for the most part.”

Arthur burst into a smile. “So you convinced them! You made them see how important it was!”

“They were more sceptical than you and I, Arthur,” Gaius said, nudging his shoulders upwards. “But yes, eventually, they lent their support.”

“So they'll fund the expedition?”

“They will, up to a point.” Gaius wiggled his fingers one upon the other. “I will chip in too, of course. Can't be helped.”

“There's a but.” Arthur frowned. There was something fishy about this or Gaius wouldn't be beating about the bush this way. “I can feel it in my bones.” 

“Well, as you know, some senior fellows don't approve of your methods.”

“Gaius--”

Gaius put up a palm. “We both know I'm not talking about your lectures, but rather your escapades.”

“My escapades have helped save countless artefacts, which are now guarded by respected museums all over the wor--”

“We were all very pleased when we read the letter from the French Résident Supérieur in Cambodia--”

Arthur huffed. As if he had any respect for the pompous fellow. He was nothing other than the member of an occupying force.

“And you can save your albeit legitimate contempt for another time.” Gaius arched his eyebrow. “That letter made quite a resounding impression and swayed the governing body. Thanks to it, you're getting your expedition funded with only one small caveat.”

Arthur's spirits sank. His guts swooped. “Which would be?”

“They want someone of their own on the mission,” Gaius said, flapping a hand about. “Someone to check you if you should decide to embark on more unorthodox adventures.”

“A supervisor?” Arthur paced, the muscle in his jaw ticking. “You want to burden me with a supervisor who's going to pester me with rules and bylaws at the most critical moments.” Though he'd never looked for it, danger seemed to chase Arthur. When danger struck more often than not there was no time for acting by the book. “Gaius, you'll see how impossible that is!”

Gaius sighed. “Arthur, my boy, I understand your vexation, but I can do nothing to change this.” He shook his head. “All the senior Brasenose fellows accepted to fund your expedition provided this person embarked on it with you. It's a sine qua non clause.” 

Arthur dropped his shoulders. “Gaius, this is the expedition of a life time. I can't have anyone on board that I do not trust.”

“Without him,” Gaius said, “there's no expedition, Arthur.”

Arthur had drawings and sketches of the Cup of Life in his notebooks. He had collected all ancient manuscripts he could afford that made a mention of it. He owned maps found glued in between the pages of folios that purported to point to its location. The search for the Cup of Life had moved Arthur for such a long time it was now a part of him. He couldn't see himself without it. “Who is it?”

“It's not a bad choice.”

Arthur could already imagine the chap the fellows had chosen to accompany him on this expedition. “It's some stuffy old codger with a professorship and no field experience, isn't it?”

Gaius opened his mouth to reply but a knock sounded. “Could you get that, Arthur?” He leant forward in his chair and massaged the base of his spine. “These old bones don't behave as they should.”

Arthur swung the door open on a young man. He was tall and had the lanky build of runners and adolescents. His face hardly wrinkled by anything other than laugh lines, he looked to be in his late twenties. He had a shock of black hair that fell forward on his forehead but was cut short at the back and wide blue eyes of a peculiarly autumnal hue. A checked shirt poking out from under a woollen v-cut sleeveless cardigan, he was smocked in tweeds, a bow tie sitting as awry as Gaius' from between the peaks of his floppy collar. “Sorry I'm late,” he said, shuffling past Arthur without a by your leave. “I'm awfully sorry. I was stuck on a bit of translation for Professor Aglovale. The Mabinogion can be quite tricky, the Lady Guest compilation most especially.” 

“Ah, Merlin,” Gaius said, hauling himself to his feet. “You're not late at all. In fact, you're quite early.”

Merlin blinked. “Am I?” He gave a rueful smile that put a dimple in his cheek. “My sense of time can get a bit distorted when I'm at work.”

“Yes, we've all been through that.” Gaius stepped round the desk and stood between Arthur and Merlin. “But what matters is that you're here.”

Arthur made a face at them both, tipped up an eyebrow.

“Ah, yes, yes. I'm getting to it.” Gaius cleared his throat. “Merlin, let me introduce you to Doctor Arthur Pendragon.” He turned to Arthur. “Arthur, this is Doctor Merlin Emrys. He's the one Brasenose appointed to document your expedition.”

Emrys put his hand out, saying, “It's a pleasure to meet you, Doctor Pendragon, your monograph on Pictish symbol stones was rive--”

“Absolutely not!” Arthur crossed his arms. “I won't have him on my expedition!”

“Arthur, be reasonable,” Gaius said, exhaling. “Merlin is an excellent scholar and he's young enough to traipse after you without any inconvenience to his health or person.” 

“He's certain to have no field experience.” Arthur pointed at Merlin, at his youthful, reddening face and his big, naive eyes. “I won't have a chap who's just had his doctorate on my team. It's preposterous!”

“Hey, I'll say.” Merlin's brow crinkled like a crochet pattern. “Isn't that too hasty a judgement?”

“No, not at all,” Arthur said, his jaw cramping he was grinding his teeth so hard. “Try again in a year or two and maybe I'll let you catalogue a few artefacts.”

“And here I thought you were quite a role model.” Merlin snorted and looked away with a head shake. “Instead here I find that, to put it mildly, you're a huge prat.”

“So now you're resorting to name calling!” Arthur widened his eyes.

“Given that you've just discounted all my qualifications without even taking a look at them,” Merlin said, “I guarantee we can safely say I could have called you worse.”

Arthur blew air through his mouth. “I--” 

“Arthur--” Gaius stepped forward, eyebrows twitching upwards in full force, eyes flaming. “If you don't take Merlin with you, I'm afraid I will have to withdraw my own backing.”

Arthur spun his head round. “Gaius, I thought you--”

“If you're putting your pride ahead of the expedition, I fear I will have to.”

Arthur took a breath and let his shoulders collapse. While Gaius' words did sound like a form of betrayal, the they did point to a truth. If he didn't take Merlin on as the senior members of college wanted, then he was placing himself ahead of the expedition he had dedicated years to. The quest for the cup of life deserved better than this. “You're right, Gaius.” Arthur dipped his head. “I wasn't thinking. I will, of course, allow Merlin on the expedition.”

Merlin was red about the face, his eyes were downcast, and his lips formed a straight line. He didn't speak.

Gaius coughed. “Merlin, don't you have something to say?”

“I, well.” Merlin shifted his weight. “I suppose I should say all is forgiven.”

“I didn't apologi--” Arthur grunted, bit his lip, then sighed. “But I will now. I, ehm.” He coughed into his fist. “I am sorry. I'll be happy to have you on board the project.”

Gaius knitted his brow at Merlin and Merlin fidgeted and worried his lip. But the more Gaius gave him the gimlet eye, the more Merlin lost his scowl. By and by his face loosened into a smile and his eyes went back to shining with satisfaction. Once this change was complete, he turned around and extended his hand to Arthur. “We should indeed give this another try. Merlin Emrys, happy to be part of your team.”

Arthur shook Merlin's hand. As he did, he noticed the tattoo blooming on his wrist. Merlin's cuff partially hid it, but some of is tracery whorled out from under the stretch of patterned cotton.

Even if the ink faded blue at the edges with the stretch of skin, Arthur made out thin parallel lines that met thicker ones mushrooming into curves rather than angles. The intersection of these segments caused the design to look like a cloud or perhaps a stylised version of a tree. Arthur couldn't tell which one it was and couldn't keep shaking Merlin's hand forever to verify.

Either way it was probably nothing more than some piece of ritualistic inking done to commemorate some kind of important event. Some archaeology graduates had been known to mark their skins with designs borrowed from the texts they studied when they passed their final examinations; likewise drunk students often went out for a night out on the town and came back with more mementos than they cared to admit to.

Arthur let go of Merlin's hand. “I hope we'll work out the kinks of our association and make this partnership work.”

 

“Yes, I hope we will.” Merlin slipped his hands in his pockets and hunching his shoulders. “And just to reassure you I'm no rook in the field. I'll send you a copy of my curriculum to prove it.”

“Yes, ehm, well, why don't you do it,” Arthur said.

“I'm glad to see you trying to get over your difficulties.” Gaius placed one of his hands on Arthur's shoulder and the other on Merlin's. “Now the quest for the Cup of Life can truly begin.”


End file.
